Most citrus plants lend themselves well to standard shapes. Lemon trees and oranges are ideal Don't worry about height for the moment. Lemon trees take as many as 10 years to produce fruits. I don't have any data to show for oranges but I suspect it will take a few years.

Get a good book on topiary so you can familiarize yourself with the techniques. If you have pictures from Seville - use it as your inspiration. Trimming depends on how fast the plant grows and I suspect in Florida it will grow faster than if grown up here in Ontario, Canada. However, I've kept bonsais which I would trim a few times a year whenever the leaves have that overgrown look. Then I trim it back a couple of inches.

As for worries about these plants being good producers. (Although 12 feet isn't that tall for tree.) It should not be a problem. Just use the standard care for whatever plant you choose. Good full sunlit location, well drained area. Good natural fertilizers, choose a variety of orange less prone to diseases,, etc.. you get the picture. You may need more than 1 plant to enable it to cross polinate. Encourage beneficial insects (you can see I'm into organic care).

Thanks for the information, Ianna. I'll check out some books on topiary the next time I go to the library. I probably should say that I'm not going to try to form perfect lollipops. I want them limbed up and topped, and I want them fairly compact and neat looking, but if they take on more naturalesque shapes, that's fine with me. I want to try to find a balance between the geometric standard and the big shrub form that citrus naturally takes. I don't know if this is "topiary" or if it will work, but that's what I'm shooting for.

I love standards and currently am training a potted bay tree and a smaller lemon plant. I've also utilized the technique to prune a row of miniature ficus trees (also potted). It's actually fairly simple. Same pruning/training procedures for both pontted ones and direct planted ones. Plant your shrub in the ideal spot and citruses love overhead sunlight (also best for a standard form). Place a straight rod besides to the plant as a guide. Use raffia or foam protected wires to tie the plant to the rod. Take care not to tie tightly as it will scar the plant. Loosen the ties as the plant becomes thicker and wider. As the plant grows, continue tying the plant to the rod. The rod helps to keep the plant as straight as possible. Remove the lower branches from the trunk and don't cut the leader. Once some of the lower branches start growing at your desired height, you may begin nipping only the tips off those branches to force new stems. and once the leader (top of the main trunk) reaches the desired height you may also nip that off. Smaller stems and branches begin to grow, nip them to begin shaping the circle. This promotes smaller branching and relatively easy to do. While the plant is still being trained, I would discourage fruiting because it does take up a bit of the plant's energies to do so.

This is just the start. A guick glance at a topiary book on pruning will help illustrate to you how it's done. A very tight lollipop form which you don't want is simply an aggressive form of pruning. It's only but one style of pruning. I like the loose standard forms a lot better.

Ianna